Halls of Valhalla: Forseti Middle Era Open

[Gandalf Parker]

llamabeast said:
You could use a random map. 60 provinces maybe. Nothing wrong with a random map. I've had a lot of fun with 4-player games on Gandalf's server, on 50 province random maps. You can also place the starting positions by hand to make it a bit less, er, random.

I have been summoned by the use of my real name

I read thru the thread. Thank you for doing this. It should help fill a need. Some bits and pieces I can add...

On my server: for my "blitz" games (2 to 4 players on 50 prov) Early age games fill up fastest, then middle age. Late age seems the slowest to fill up and start. I sometimes put off starting new low age games just to push players into the late age that has been waiting for players. The games average around 60 turns so beware of starting too many at once or you might fill the server and not be able to start new ones for a month or so

The mid-range games Ive done are very popular (8-15 players on a 200 prov). They fill up fast but they tend to last longer. Im limited on how many of those I can run as direct-connect games but PbEM should avoid that problem. I might recommend that you do not use quickhost on large games. Set it for a specific time that it will host so you can make sure that they do not try to host at the same time and crash the server.

Wrap-maps are a need. We do have a map generator now that can create wrappable maps. If you want to keep games always available then you might want to generate a bunch of those ahead of time to make sure they are playable.

[llamabeast]

Happily my server is immune to blowing up from simultaneous hostings, and also has effectively unlimited capacity (100 games?), so there shouldn't be any problems on either of those counts. Thanks for the info Gandalf.

I need to look into this wraparound map generator. Is that paradoxharbinger's one? I haven't followed that closely.

LP - maybe you should split off a separate thread for the upcoming game (especially as I think you now have 5 players), since this one is getting a bit unwieldy.

[Caduceus]

I will try to jump in on the next round as I will be out of town this coming weekend. Sounds like you guys are really getting the ball rolling here!

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Thread for Atla created. Preparations for the next game will begin tomorrow.

[Gandalf Parker]

llamabeast said:
Happily my server is immune to blowing up from simultaneous hostings, and also has effectively unlimited capacity (100 games?), so there shouldn't be any problems on either of those counts. Thanks for the info Gandalf.

I wasnt sure. I actually havent blown up many games on my server (and what ones did blow up were more from the MUD game than the Dominions games). But I would hate to get a bunch of larger games started and then on turn 100 find out that its a problem. Ive noticed that some people join multiple games so they tend to do all of their turns at the same time each day. With quickhost, sometimes they end up kicking off the hosting on multiple games. Staggering large games seemed a good idea. Especially with PbEM where a set hour isnt such a problem, might even be preferable.

I need to look into this wraparound map generator. Is that paradoxharbinger's one? I haven't followed that closely.

Yes. He got the wrap part working early on. But Im having trouble figuring out how to get a map closer to what the players are used to. Colors, and land masses, percentage of terrain, etc. If someone comes up with a command string that doesnt look like a kaleidoscope (no offense PH) then I would love it if they posted it. Im sure it has the capability but my hit-or-miss method isnt finding it.

[lch]

If you are a little sophisticated with a graphics program then you can create your own wraparound maps, at least from random maps, with a little post-processing. See here for example:
http://graphicssoft.about.com/librar...aa080499p2.htm

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Bragi is now recruiting. At the moment I will maintain the player list here and in the first post.

Players:
Caduceus
Halaster
Reverend Zombie
Ramz
Dementd
EarthRaver